Blessing the animal husbandry: an anthropological look about the blessing of animals in the countryside of São Paulo state, Brazil.

• Grant number: 18/09278-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: April 01, 2019
• End date: March 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Felipe Ferreira Vander Velden
• Grantee: Míriam Rebeca Rodeguero Stefanuto
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Associated with Catholicism, blessing is a specific way of seeking healing and the solution of many problems, both for humans and animals. This project proposes to specifically investigate the practice of blessing in animal breeding in sites at the countryside state of São Paulo, Brazil, with the objective of thinking about interspecific relations and the connections between religion and human - animal relations in this rural context. So, to do it, I propose to conduct a field research in the cities of Bariri and Itaju, during which I intend to investigate people who seek and people who offer or practice animal blessing. The objective of this study is to analyze the relationship between faith healers, saints, breeders and the animals and what interspecific relationships are built on rural properties, trying to understand what kind of animal and animal husbandry emerges from these practices. I suggest that the act of blessing is one technique used in animal husbandry, and that it involves, besides creators and animals, the faith healers and the entities mobilized by them, so that blessing can contribute to the understanding of domesticity through forms of communication between animals, humans and deities.